12 Tips for Conducting Effective User Interviews

I wrote about the importance of doing research in my last article, Research Driven Design. One of the types of research I’ve had the most success with is user interviews. Talking to people in person, over the phone or in a video chat gives me the chance to ask more in-depth questions than what I would be able to inquire about in a survey. I like being able to target my audience and find out what their problems are. After all, the goal of design is to fix people’s problems.

I started conducting user interviews during my first UX project for Designlab and I’ve done them for every project since. I started out sloppy, but with guidance from my mentors and a bit of research I’ve become proficient. Here is what’s helped me become a successful user interviewer.

Finding the Right Number of People

When I first started interviewing people for UX projects, I asked one of my mentors how many participants I should aim to get. He told me five people would be a good number for the project I was working on. For future projects he told me to find between 4 and 20 people. This is a broad range.

Industry leaders, such as the Nielsen Norman Group, use interviews as a way to “explore users’ general attitudes”. Other people use interviews to discover more specific information. Mitchel Seaman wrote a post titled The Right Number of User Interviews two years ago on Medium. He came to the same conclusion I have. The bigger and more diverse your target audience is, the more people you have to interview. I’ve read that it’s possible to find patterns in general attitudes in as few as four people, but I usually try to get 8–10 participants.

Finding the Right People

If you are revising an app or updating a site, do research on the people who already use your service. They’re the people who will benefit the most so they’re your target audience. The easiest way to find your customers is on your social media pages. If you have a decent following, create posts advertising the type of research you’re doing and an incentive you’re going to provide. When I am looking for interview participants on social media, I make sure to boost the post. That way it reaches the maximum number of followers.

If you don’t have a large social media presence, email or call your customers. You’re probably not going to get the same response rate as you would through social media, but you’ll get something.

If you don’t have an email list, don’t have a lot of customers, or are creating an app or site from scratch, you will need to figure out the demographic you want to target. It may not be perfect, but it should be a lot less broad than everyone! A few months ago I was doing a personal project creating a site for a bike shop based outside of Brooklyn. My target audience was people based in the borough who where interested in buying a bike. I posted an ad on Brooklyn’s Craigslist offering $5 for a 15-minute video chat. I got over 20 responses in 48 hours.

There are also sites like Ethnio that will find participants for you. I’ve never used them. I prefer to find my own people. If you have a short amount of time, a defined audience, and a large budget, the services are out there. If you still can’t find interviewees, this article from wikiHow outlines six steps you can take to find participants in a niche market.

If your product isn’t too targeted, it can be informative to interview one or two people who are not in your target audience. They might have a different perspective and provide completely different information than the people you’ve already spoken to.

Providing an Incentive

Pay people for their time. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Though, the more targeted your audience, the more you’re probably going to have to pay. I’ve used cash and gift cards. There are positives and negatives to both.

Cash is great because it is useful everywhere and it’s instantly transferable if you have a PayPal account. I’ve found that gift cards can take a bit longer to process, but they can stand out more when you’re advertising. This is especially true if you know your target audience loves a specific brand.

Money catches people’s eye and gives them a reason to justify doing the interview, but most people don’t do it for the money. The majority of the people I talk to participate so that they can have their opinions be heard. Many times they already have a problem in their minds and want to change the design in some way. Don’t ignore this need. I can’t stress this enough. People want their viewpoints to be validated. I acknowledge the ideas of every person I interview, even if I don’t agree with what they said. Saying “I’ve never though of that” can go a long way.

Have an Opening Statement

I create a new Word document for every series of interviews I conduct. This document contains my opening statement, questions, and comments. Over the course of the interview I may deviate from the questions or comments I’ve listed, but I never deviate much from my opening statement. I don’t memorize it or read it off of the page, but I know the points I want to cover. Here’s how I do it:

1. Hi, I’m Zach. I’m doing research to improve (mention the name of the app or website I’m interviewing people for). I was hoping I could ask you a couple of questions about (mention the name of the app or website I’m interviewing people for). (Wait for the person’s response.)
2. The goal of these questions is to get long answers, so this usually takes 30–45 minutes. There are no wrong responses. You can leave at any point and you don’t have to answer any questions you’re not comfortable with.
3. I have a hard time taking notes while keeping a conversation going, so is it okay if I record our interview? (Wait for response.)
4. Do you have any questions before we begin? (Wait for response.)

Here’s why I do it:

1. Although I’ve usually emailed the person I’m interviewing and scheduled a time to talk, this helps to jog his/her memory of who I am and why we’re speaking. I phrase the second sentence as a question and get them to say yes as soon as I can.
2. My best interviews have been when I asked a short, broad question and the person gave a long response. Some people get self-conscious if they talk for too long. Others aren’t aware my goal is to get them to talk about the subject as long as possible. Regardless, I let them know I want them to talk for long periods of time. I also let them know that there’s no pressure on them to answer questions they don’t want to answer.
3. Some people are uncomfortable with being recorded in any way. Also, in many places it’s the law to get someone’s consent before your record them. I always ask if it’s okay.
4. I give people the opportunity to ask questions before I begin so that I can put their minds at ease. I’ve spoken to a lot of people who have never done an organized interview before. They don’t know what to expect.

My opening statement isn’t as much a presentation as it is a prepared dialogue. Through it I’ve established that I’m looking to have a conversation. Conversations are easy, so talking to me should be easy.

I do refrain from giving people too much information about the questions I’m going to ask and about the information I’m looking for. I already have opinions and assumptions about each question. Letting people know what my viewpoints are prevents them from answering the questions in a way that’s unique to them. I’d taint the results.

Creating Rapport

I’m a fan of recording my interviews, but there are negatives. One of the drawbacks is that the participants may be on edge for a minute or two after I press the record button. They may try to watch what they say, give very short responses, and be as politically correct as possible. The only way I’ve found to combat this is to create rapport. If you have a natural conversation and show that you have empathy for their needs, they’ll calm down.

After they ask any questions they may have, I get a couple of bio details. I always get their name, location, age, and occupation, but I usually get some info specific to the subject. This doesn’t take long, but I do try to make a conversation out of it. If I were creating a site for a ski resort I might say, “Does your occupation involve skiing or do you ski as a hobby?” instead of, “What’s your occupation?” It makes it more of a dialogue and I tend to get more information from their answer.

Asking the Correct Questions

I’m a list person. Every workday I make a list of the tasks I need to get done and organize them into three categories of importance. I have a list of personal goals that I regularly look at and I always go to the grocery store with a shopping list, so it probably doesn’t surprise you that I list the questions I ask in an interview.

When I was in school for UX design, my mentor, Patrick, told me to ask broad questions first. He advised me to ask sub-questions only if the participant doesn’t respond adequately to the broad question. I’ve found this advice useful and have followed it in all of the interviews I’ve conducted. People love to talk. Many people will answer the sub-questions and respond in ways I didn’t think of, when I just let them speak. They’ll tell stories and give more insight into their methodology of using the interface. The only danger is letting them get off topic, but this isn’t a real problem if you’re listening and able to direct the conversation.

Another reason to ask broad questions first is to get their unbiased opinions. The more specific your question, the greater the chance the interviewee tries to give you an answer he/she thinks you want to hear.

Another piece of advice Patrick gave me was to ask one question at a time. Let the participant answer first before you ask the next question. Asking multiple questions at the same time makes it easy for the interviewee to pick which ones he/she thinks are important.

Closing Questions

I have two closing questions I use in every interview I do:

“What else should we know?”

“What are your questions for us?”

Most of the people I’ve interviewed had additional comments or questions. This is true even if they didn’t have much to say during the interview. I like to think their interest’s been perked!

I’ve already noted that most people who participate in interviews do so to have their input acknowledged. They’ve answered the questions you’ve asked and talked about whatever you’ve wanted them to talk about. They want to know your goal. More importantly, they want to know if they have helped you achieve that goal.

I explain more about the goals of the interview at this stage, especially if they ask about them. People might remember some stuff after you’ve told them what you’re looking for. Record these responses, but note that they were said after you gave them additional info.

Give People Time to Answer

I interview people at the beginning of my design process. Sometimes I work on the project for many months doing information architecture, wire-framing, and building mock-ups. When this happens and I interview the first person for the next project, I’m a bit rusty. This makes me nervous.

When the interviewer gets nervous, he/she can babble, echo, and even forget to ask the question. There are two things I do to combat these tendencies. I slow down and I record myself. Slowing down my speech helps me to remain in the moment and remain in control. I record myself so I can pay attention to the person I’m interviewing and so I can catch my mistakes when I replay the recording.

If someone doesn’t answer right away, it’s natural to want to break the silence. Many interviewers get nervous and want to clarify the question they just asked before their interviewee has had time to speak. Don’t do this.

People don’t like silence. The person you’re interviewing will always say something. They might need some time to think about their answer or they might ask a clarifying question, but they’ll always say something. A good rule of thumb is never to be the first person to speak after you’ve asked a question.

Recording the Interview

Nobody likes to hear his/her own voice. I still have traces of the lisp I had as a kid so I especially hate it. Although I may cringe when I hear myself mispronounce a word, the benefits to recording the interview far outweigh the drawbacks.

I can only do one thing at a time. Keeping up a conversation and writing down someone’s responses are especially difficult for me. When I record an interview I almost always relisten to it so I can copy down the participant’s answers verbatim. I also listen for my mistakes. Knowing what I did wrong is the first step in improving.

Always ask people before you record them. In some places it’s illegal to record without getting someone’s permission. Even if it’s not illegal where I’m living, I always ask if it’s okay. It’s the respectful thing to do.

I record the interview on my phone through an app called Voice Recorder. There are a number of apps that are equally as good. If I’m talking to the participant in person, I place the phone on a table to the side. If I’m talking to a participant over the phone, I call the person through Google Voice on my computer and place my phone next to my laptop. I only videorecord interviews if I’m having the participant complete a task on his/her screen. Usually it’s not necessary and the video recordings take up a lot of space.

Keep Records of the Interviews

When I’m going through the interview process, I try to keep all of my data in one place. I usually write my questions in a Word document. I copy and paste these questions multiple times within the same document then write down the participant’s answers while I’m listening to the recording.

I save my recording on the SD card on my phone for at least as long as I’m working on the project. I usually need to hear them only once, but they can be helpful to have if you’re creating personas and want to hear the exact phrase someone said.

Analyze Your Data

I usually see trends in people’s responses as I go through the interview, but I glean the most information after I organize all of the data. I use a spreadsheet program such as Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. I like seeing people’s responses side by side so I can compare them. It’s not pretty, but it works.

Once I see problematic patterns I create a list of actions to fix them. I do this in a Word document. Then, I organize the items from those that are most important to those that are least important.

If I’m giving a formal presentation of my results to owners or shareholders, I dress the data up in a PowerPoint presentation. It’s the same info, but showing it in an attractive way helps me convince my audience what data is important and what data can be ignored.

Don’t Sweat Over the First Interview

I’ve messed up interviews. I’ve forgotten to ask questions. I’ve neglected to ask obvious follow-up questions. I’ve even forgotten people’s names. In the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal.

Don’t stress if your first one isn’t perfect, just do it. Follow these tips and you’ll get better with every interview you do.

That’s it. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article, I’d appreciate it if you’d heart it. If you want to read more, check out other posts I’ve written, follow me on social media, or visit my site. If you’re looking to hire me or if you just want to say hello send me an email at Zfichmanklein@gmail.com.